℃-ute is an all-female Japanese pop group within Hello! Project. The character "℃" (degree Celsius) is substituted for "C" in notation for the purpose of expressing ardor—the hyphen does not have any meaning in particular. The proper pronunciation for this group in Japanese is kyūto (キュート) with pitch accents on both "ū" and "o". Their combined CD and DVD sales exceed 1 million copies in Japan alone. ℃-ute's highest selling single is Tokai no Hitorigurashi / Aitte Motto Zanshin with 67,748 copies sold and their lowest selling single is Sekaiichi HAPPY na Onna no Ko with 19,830 copies sold.

On June 30, 2002, all members of ℃-ute were initially selected during the audition for Hello! Project Kids.[1] Later in the same year, Suzuki Airi and Hagiwara Mai became members of 4KIDS, and appeared in the Minimoni the Movie Okashi na Daibouken!. A year later, some of the members were placed in bands led by Morning Musume members: Suzuki was selected to be in Aa!,[2] while Umeda Erika, Yajima Maimi, and Murakami Megumi were in ZYX. Both units were short-lived, and their activity stopped when half of the Hello! Project Kids were choosen to form Berryz Koubou in January 2004.[3] The kids passed over would later form ℃-ute.

In 2004, half of Hello! Project Kids were choosen to form Berryz Koubou, which was formed with the intention of rotating the kids throughout the unit. However the idea was eventually dropped. The remaining girls formed ℃-ute.[4] The group was officially announced on June 11, 2005,[4] though its formation had been rumored for several months prior.

On February 21, ℃-ute's first official single Sakura Chirari was released. In the first week it ranked fifth on the Oricon charts, a feat not even accomplished by Morning Musume (who had ranked 6th on their debut single). With their debut single, they became the youngest group (with the average age of 13) to rank in the top 10.

On December 30, ℃-ute was chosen as "Best New Artist" by Japan Record Awards, 14 out of the 21 panel judges voted for them. Producer Tsunku received the award while the screen showed the girls crying at the dressing rooms after their performance.

On December 31, ℃-ute performed at the 58th NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen as part of a special group with Morning Musume and Berryz Koubou. Hagiwara Mai became the youngest person to participate in Kouhaku Uta Gassen, breaking Kago Ai's record. (Hagiwara's record was broken the following year.)

At the end of 2008, ℃-ute was nominated for the main Japan Record Award, the Grand Prix, for the song "Edo no Temari Uta II", which was chosen as one of the best works of the year, but lost to Exile and had to be contented with a Gold Award.

Umeda Erika graduated on October 25, to study on becoming a fashion model. This is the third member to leave the group but the first to have a graduation ceremony. EVERYDAY Zekkouchou!!, released in September, was Umeda's last single in ℃-ute. The single ranked #2 weekly and topped the daily charts with a #1 position in its first week, this is the first time for the group to reach #1 daily and currently ℃-ute's highest-charting single overall.

On January 8, ℃-ute announced their 5th album Shocking 5 which will be released on February 24.

℃-ute announced on a live radio show that they would be opening up a blog.

SHOCK!, ℃-ute's eleventh major single, was released on January 6. It topped at #1 for the daily charts and #5 for the week, selling 18,665 copies. This is the first a-side of a single to have all solo lines given to only one person (Airi) with the rest of the group singing only the chorus as well as their first single as a 5-nin Group. The following month on February 24, 2010, their 5th studio album, Shocking 5, was released.

On March 12, it was announced that ℃-ute events are cancelled do to earthquake and tsunami.

On March 23, a new release date was set for ℃-ute's 6th album which will be released on April 6.

On March 31, it was announced that ℃-ute will be releasing their 16th single titled "Momoiro Sparkling which will be released on May 25.

Berryz Koubou and ℃-ute will star in a play called Jikuu no Tobira (Door of Time).

On June 17, it was announced that ℃-ute and Berryz Koubou will be having a fall concert tour.

On June 18th, ℃-ute will be broadcasting their ℃-ute Concert Tour 2011 Spring ~Chou! Chou WONDERFUL Tour~, live through their official Youtube channel (ocutechannel) from Yokosuka Geijutsu Theater. Suzuki commented that this concert will be the first concert in Japan to be broadcast live on Youtube, and she hopes that more people get to know them through it.

On June 18, ℃-ute's spring concert entitled ℃-ute Concert Tour 2011 Spring ~Chou! Chou WONDERFUL Tour~ was broadcast live on the group's Youtube channel. The live stream was a big success. As it was later confirmed by the band's leader Yajima Maimi in her blog and by the management of the Up-Front Agency on Twitter, there were 93,144 Youtube viewers who watched the broadcast.

On June 23, it was announced that ℃-ute will be releasing their 17th single titled Sekaiichi Happy na Onna no Ko, which will be released on September 7.

On April 8, ℃-ute performed at the idol festival Idol Yokochō Matsuri, giving their first non-Hello! Project joint concert in their entire career. The music news provider BARKS praised the "power performance" that was "overwhelming from beginning to end" and demontrated the "number one" band's unity out of the whole Hello! Project.

On April 18, ℃-ute's 18th single "Kimi wa Jitensha Watashi wa Densha de Kitaku" was released. The music video for the song was uploaded on ℃-ute's official YouTube channel on March 12. With more than 40,000 copies sold within the first week and reaching number 3 of the Oricon weekly singles chart, the single became their highest-selling single to date, breaking the record of their 3rd major single "Tokaikko Junjou".

On June 20, ℃-ute released its second collaboration CD single with the fellow Hello! Project Kids group Berryz Koubou, titled "Chou HAPPY SONG". The title tune is a mix of two previously published songs, Berryz Koubou's "Because happiness" and ℃-ute's "Shiawase no Tochuu" from their 2012 albums. Both tracks were intentionally composed and produced by Tsunku to form a new song when played simultaneously. The trick was originally scheduled to be announced at a summer Hello! Project concert, but was uncovered by fans in mid-April. The song became a hot topic on the Internet, and a set of the three tracks, "Because happiness", "Shiawase no Tochū ", and "Chou Happy Song", was hastily released as a digital download single on April 28.

Also in June, it had been announced that ℃-ute's concert at the Yokosuka Arts Theater on June 30 would be broadcast live on YouTube.

On September 5, ℃-ute released their 19th single, titled "Aitai Aitai Aitai na". The song was premiered at the first concert of the Hello! Project 15th Anniversary Live 2012 Summer tour, on July 21 at the Onyx Theater in Osaka.

On November 28th, a rumor was leaked by a person who concerned with a TV drama that airs in January, that the 20th single would be titled "Kono Machi", a Moritaka Chisato cover, which would be expected be released in February 6, 2013.

On December 16, it was confirmed that ℃-ute's 20th single is in fact Kono Machi and it's set to be released on February 6, 2013.

℃-ute will star in the stage play Sakura no Hanataba. The play will run from March 14 through March 24.

On The release event of ℃-ute's Crazy Kanzen na Otona, it was announced that on July 5, ℃-ute will have a Cutie Circuit concert in Paris for the first time. Also on September 10, ℃-ute will have their annual ℃-ute no Hi Concert at Nippon Budokan.

On June 29, ℃-ute received a certification from the Japan Anniversary Council to make "℃-ute no Hi" (℃-ute's Day) a national day.

On November 6, ℃-ute released their 23rd single Tokai no Hitorigurashi / Aitte Motto Zanshin.. The single ranked 3rd on the oricon weekly single chart and sold a total of 67,748 copies, making it ℃-ute's highest selling single to date.

On February 24, it was announced that ℃-ute would be collaborating with Reebok to promote their product Your Reebok, where one personally customize their Reebok, for the March 2014. Both "Kokoro no Sakebi wo Uta ni Shitemita" and "Love take it all" were used for their collaboration "Your Reebok x ℃-ute".[5][6]

On March 5, it was announced that ℃-ute's "Love take it all" would be the inauguration CM song for 2014 BS-TBS' Idol Campaign. They will also have a 6-episode TV show called ℃-ute no Challenge TV every last Thursday of the month on BS-TBS.[7]

On April 15th it was announced that Berryz Koubou and ℃-ute were invited to attend the 15th Japan Expo in Paris as Guest of Honor.[8]

On August 23rd it was announced the ℃-ute has set two world records (the longest passing of an egg in a relay (1 hour and 30 minutes) and the most snacks eaten in a relay (1 hour). The records were achieved at a public recording of their TV-show with respectively 259 and 346 of their fans at Asakasa Blitz. [9]

On September 27th, ℃-ute will perform at the 2014 Aomori SHOCK ON open-air music festival alongside Berryz Koubou and other artists.[10]

℃-ute was named by Tsunku . According to him and the Hello! Project official website, the English word cute means "(little and) lovely, pretty" ((小さくて) かわいらしい，可憐な). Wanting to somehow express the girls' overflowing fervor (enthusiasm), he substituted "℃" for "C".

℃-ute's Hagiwara Mai held the record of being the youngest participant ever at the 58th Kōhaku Uta Gassen (紅白歌合戦) on December 31, 2007, being only 11 years old at the time, until 2011.

Although Suzuki Airi is the main singer, fellow member Yajima Maimi and former member Murakami Megumi received a substantial amount of lines and solos in song as well. More recently, Okai Chisato has gotten a substantial amount of lines and solos as well.

They were the first Hello! Project group to have a Facebook page.

They were the first group in Japan to broadcast a concert live on YouTube. It streamed live on their channel (ocutechannel) on June 18, 2011.

All of the group's major label singles have reached the Top 10 in the Weekly Oricon Chart.

As of early September 2014, the average age in the group is 20 years old.

They are the only group to rearrange all the member colors after a graduation.

As of January 2013, July is the month when they released most singles, 5 singles, including indie singles. If not including indie singles, February and April becomes the months when they released most singles, both with 4 major singles.